News

WORCESTER, Mass. – Elizabeth Morse, Jonathan Niconchuk, and Kelly Shaw are this year’s recipients of the Mrs. Kate C. Power Medal. This award is presented to the highest ranking student(s) in the second-year class. Morse, Niconchuk, and Shaw share top ranking among the 712 students in the Class of 2009.

Funded by an anonymous bequest in 1942, the award consists of an engraved medal and a cash prize.

Morse, a biology major with a biochemistry concentration from Shelton, Conn., is involved in a number of activities on campus: Student Programs for Urban Development (SPUD), COMPASS, biology society, and the MAGIS program. She is a science ambassador, admissions volunteer, member of the biology student advisory committee, HAYES (Helping Area Youth Embrace Spirituality) retreat team leader, student leader for the Hour of Power Interdenominational Prayer Group, and a teaching assistant for the Worcester Public Schools Summer Science Institute. She is a member of the College Honors Program, Ignatian Scholar, and two-time Dana scholar awardee.

Niconchuk, a chemistry and Spanish double major with a premedical concentration from Topsfield, is the incoming director of community relations for the Student Government Association, and is also involved with SPUD. He is a member of the chemistry student advisory committee, and a judicial advisor on campus. Niconchuk is an Ignatian Scholar and a two-time Dana Scholar awardee. He is currently studying abroad in Costa Rica and will be a leader on the Manresa retreat in October.

Shaw, a Spanish and economics double major from South Windsor, Conn., is a member of the Holy Cross track and field squad, a member of SPUD, and head greeter at campus liturgies. She is an Ignatian Scholar and is currently studying in Spain.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Mary Ebbott, associate professor of classics at the College of the Holy Cross, has received an $80,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to publish a critical volume about an unconventional section of the Iliad that has been dismissed or ignored by most scholars — even denounced by some as “un-Homeric.”

The work by Ebbott, in collaboration with Casey Dué, associate professor of classics at the University of Houston, will focus on the tenth book of the Iliad: a night raid undertaken by the Greek heroes Odysseus and Diomedes. Book 10 is often referred to as the “Doloneia” after the name of Dolon, the Trojan spy whom Odysseus and Diomedes kill on their mission.

Consisting of a critical text, a line-by-line commentary, and a series of introductory essays, Ebbott and Dué’s book, Oral Poetics and the Homeric Doloneia, will focus on the oral, traditional origins of the entire epic, which was composed without writing and was handed down orally for centuries, sung time and again for a traditional audience.

“It has been almost eight decades since Milman Parry’s groundbreaking scholarship showed that the Iliad is an oral, traditional epic. Oral poetics — understanding this oral, traditional nature of the poetry — helps us to understand the remarkable features of the epic,” Ebbott says. “There has been a great deal of scholarship since then building on his work and that of his student Albert Lord, but there has not been a commentary that fully takes these oral poetics into account. This project will correct this lack, and will do so by taking on perhaps the least understood book of the Iliad — least understood, that is, from a strictly literary point of view.”

In addition to the research and critical analysis of the text, Ebbott emphasizes that the collaborative nature of the project is significant, especially for an epic that itself is a collective achievement. “We believe strongly that new models for collaboration are important for progress in the humanities in general,” she says. “And we expect that the commentary we produce will demonstrate how our sustained collaboration can lead to more thoughtful, thorough, and creative scholarship on the Homeric epics.”

With the NEH funding, the resulting volume will be published both in print and on-line (the latter available without charge) through the Center for Hellenic Studies. Dué and Ebbott expect the volume to be published in 2009.

Ebbott, who lives in Worcester, has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2001. She is the executive editor at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., where she is one of the editors of the Homer Multitext project. Her publications include Imagining Illegitimacy in Classical Greek Literature and “Butler’s Authoress of the Odyssey: gendered readings of Homer, then and now.”

Ebbott is the project director for the grant, which was funded through the NEH’s collaborative research program in the division of research programs.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Three New England Catholic liberal arts colleges will partner in a pioneering assessment project funded by a grant from The Teagle Foundation of New York. Assumption College, College of the Holy Cross, and Saint Anselm College will work together to examine how undergraduates acquire and refine the moral, ethical, civic, and spiritual values that lie at the heart of their institutional missions.

The grant is part of the Foundation’s Outcomes and Assessment initiative, which explores the potential of faculty-led, value-added assessment.

For the project, titled “Assessing Students’ Moral and Spiritual Growth in Liberal Arts Colleges,” faculty and administrators from the three colleges will collaborate in exploring ways to measure student development of values. The institutions will also assess the extent to which they are successful in providing opportunities — especially academic ones — that encourage such values.

The development of students’ personal value systems is a distinguishing feature of all three colleges, clearly stated in their respective mission statements. The project will analyze current tools and practices, as well as new methods with the goal of refining and implementing assessment strategies—ones that can also be shared with other liberal arts colleges nationally.

The grant was one of 15 recently awarded by The Teagle Foundation, totaling nearly $500,000 to fund collaborative projects involving more than 35 colleges, universities, and educational institutions. Holy Cross will serve as the lead institution for the grant.

“If colleges and universities are to bring student learning to the highest level possible, they must build systematically on what they have already achieved,” said W. Robert Connor, president of The Teagle Foundation. “With this latest round of grants, we aimed to provide targeted support for the information gathering that is crucial to the development of liberal education, for the assessment instruments and processes that let us know how well we’re serving students and how we can do still better, and for the fresh thinking that energizes the teaching and learning process as a whole.”

About The Teagle Foundation
The Teagle Foundation (www.teaglefoundation.org) provides leadership for liberal education, marshalling the intellectual and financial resources necessary to ensure that today’s students have access to challenging, wide-ranging, and enriching college educations. It believes that the benefits of such learning last for a lifetime and are best achieved when colleges develop broad and intellectually stimulating curricula, engage their students in active learning, explore questions of deep social and personal significance, set clear goals, and — crucially — systematically measure progress toward them.

About Assumption College
Founded in 1904, Assumption College (www.assumption.edu) is a liberal arts and professional studies college rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition. Assumption has been named a “Best Value” in the 2006 edition of Barron’s Best Buys in College Education. For the last several years, Assumption has been included in the U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Colleges” guide as well as the Princeton Review’s Best Northeastern Colleges as one of the best colleges in the northeastern United States.
Press contact: Troy Watkins twatkins@assumption.edu 508-767-7175

About the College of the Holy Cross
The oldest Catholic college in New England, Holy Cross (www.holycross.edu) was founded in 1843 by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Worcester, Mass. Holy Cross is a highly selective, four-year, undergraduate liberal arts institution and ranks among the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges.
Press contact: Ellen Ryder eryder@holycross.edu 508-793-2419

About Saint Anselm College
Saint Anselm (www.anselm.edu) is a four-year Catholic, undergraduate liberal arts college, founded by Benedictine monks in 1889. Located on 440 wooded acres in Manchester, NH, the college prepares its students to live creative and generous lives as engaged and active citizens. The college’s humanities program, Portraits of Human Greatness, has earned national recognition. In 2005, Princeton Review named Saint Anselm one of 81 Colleges with a Conscience nationwide.
Press contact: Barbara LeBlanc bleblanc@anselm.edu 603-641-7241

WORCESTER, Mass. – Paul Melley, assistant chaplain and director of liturgical music at the College of the Holy Cross, had his debut album, Humbled, released on July 19 by GIA Music. Based in Chicago, GIA is an international publisher of Catholic and Christian resources for prayer and worship.

On Humbled, singer/songwriter Melley takes a contemporary approach and sound and blends it within the Catholic tradition grounded in solid theology. The recording contains relevant texts, many straight from the Lectionary for Mass.

Humbled is a collection of songs that have been used in worship, including many that Melley has used during liturgies at Holy Cross since arriving in 2003. The CD is named Humbled based on St. Paul’s letter to the Phillipians. The letter contains the earliest known form of Christian hymn, generally referred to as the Hymn to the Philippians. The letter to the Philippians calls for Christian unity and presents one of the most explicit and profound testimonies in the New Testament of Christ’s humanity and divinity.

“I believe that the hymn contains theology that is imperative that we embrace, which is to give of ourselves and let go of those things that may hinder us and empty ourselves in service to those in need in the pattern of Jesus Christ,” Melley said.

Early next year, the music will be put in print for use in worship.

Melley is a singer, saxophonist, and composer. He has performed throughout the United States, Canada and Europe; collaborated with the top innovators in the field of liturgical music; and is featured on a number of recordings. He sang his own composition at the Vigil Liturgy attended by Pope John Paul II in Toronto for World Youth Day 2002.

At Holy Cross, Melley serves as director of the Chapel Choir as well as the Contemporary Ensemble, and oversees music used in liturgy and worship. He is also the chaplain coordinator for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults group on campus. Melley has been a part time faculty member at Boston College’s Graduate Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry for the last four years.

Melley received a bachelor of arts degree in voice and music education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and is completing a masters of theology with a concentration in liturgy at Boston College.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The College of the Holy Cross has received $20,000 in seed money from the 3M Foundation to establish the Blackstone Collaboratory, which will bring together natural scientists, mathematicians, historians and economists from Holy Cross and the region to address key scientific questions related to the environmental health of the Blackstone River.

The project is also designed to help coordinate the efforts of local and regional educational and community organizations with an interest in the river and the Blackstone Valley.

To be housed on the College’s campus, the new collaboratory will take advantage of Holy Cross’ physical proximity to the river’s headwaters as well as the new Blackstone Gateway Visitor Center, just a quarter mile from campus. The project will draw on faculty expertise from the College’s various academic disciplines, including Environmental Studies and Community-Based Learning courses.

The genesis of the project began in 2003, when Catherine Roberts, associate professor in the department of mathematics and computer science and co-recipient of the grant with Charles S. Weiss, director of Grants and Corporate and Foundation Giving, created a working group of faculty from several colleges and environmental institutions in Worcester. As word spread about these efforts, more and more community partners expressed interest in Blackstone-related issues and possibilities for collaboration and sharing information.

In March 2006, Holy Cross hosted the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor Commission’s Annual Dinner and Symposium. Last fall, the College hosted the Blackstone Canal Symposium at which Edward O’Donnell, associate professor of history at Holy Cross, shared his research on how Irish immigrants played a major role in the Industrial Revolution.

Since fall 2005, the College has provided office space to the Blackstone River Coalition, a partnership of more than 20 organizations working to restore the Blackstone River and to improve the watershed. Through the collaboratory, the College will make laboratory space on campus available to support the water-quality testing efforts of the Blackstone River Coalition in their Campaign for a Fishable/Swimmable Blackstone by 2015. The College provides greenhouse space to the Regional Environmental Council in support of their urban garden program, and is a major supporter of their annual Earth Day clean-up event in Worcester. The Collaboratory will seek additional ways to connect the College to these and other community groups.

Roberts will serve as director of the Blackstone Collaboratory, coordinating courses, programs, student internships, faculty and community partners, including the Blackstone River Coalition, the Blackstone River Science Collaboratory, the National Park Service, and the Regional Environmental Council.

About Blackstone River Valley
The National Park Service established the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor in 1986. NPS describes the rich history and culture of the region, characterizing it as the “Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution.” America’s first textile mill was built on this river in 1790. Other mills soon followed, drawing immigrant workers. The Blackstone Valley contains more than 10,000 historic buildings and sites that together tell the story of America’s transition from an agrarian society to one of industry. For more information visit: http://www.nps.gov/blac/.

About Catherine Roberts
A member of the faculty since 2001, Roberts specializes in mathematical modeling. Roberts’ work as the editor of the journal Natural Resource Modeling led to her leadership in the development of a recreational use model for white water rafting traffic on the Colorado River for the Grand Canyon National Park. Roberts was recently selected as one of 14 master teachers for the Intel Massachusetts Department of Education/Intel Math Initiative, where she will take part in a teacher professional development program for K-8 mathematics teachers designed to ensure high quality mathematics instruction and high levels of mathematics learning in elementary schools.

About 3M Foundation
3M is a $22.9 billion diversified technology company with leading positions in electronics, telecommunications, industrial, consumer and office, health care, safety and other markets. Headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., the company has operations in nearly 200 countries. 3M Community Giving consists of product donations and cash grants by 3M and the 3M Foundation and bolstered by employee and retiree volunteerism. In 2006, over $37 million was awarded to education and charitable organizations.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Gareth Roberts, assistant professor in the mathematics and computer science department at the College of the Holy Cross, has received a $124,036 grant from the National Science Foundation to study celestial mechanics over the next three years. The educational impact of this project includes mentoring of undergraduate researchers at the College.

The goal of the project, titled “Questions on Finiteness and Stability in Celestial Mechanics,” is to make significant progress on some challenging research questions in the field by employing modern techniques from the field of algebraic geometry. The questions to be studied include Saari’s conjecture, the question on finiteness of relative equilibria, and stability of relative equilibria. This last topic is particularly relevant for plotting spacecraft trajectory and discovering inexpensive methods of exploring space. Moreover, locating stable solutions provides key information pertaining to the kinds of orbits astronomers and others in the field expect to see in the universe.

Over the course of the three years, Roberts, who lives in Worcester, plans on working with at least four research students. “The goal is to introduce them to a serious research problem they find interesting and can throw themselves into. They will be learning new mathematical subjects such as celestial mechanics and algebraic geometry, proving theorems, doing lengthy, demanding calculations and investigating problems using sophisticated mathematical software on computers,” he said.

More information on the project
Celestial mechanics concerns the motion of celestial bodies (stars, planets, asteroids, even spaceships) under their mutual gravitational attraction. It is inherently a mathematical discipline although applications to astronomy and spacecraft transport are obvious. “Before we can fly a ship we need to know how to get there,” explains Roberts.

Celestial mechanists apply their craft to the N-body problem, with N representing the number of bodies (assumed to be point masses). Using Newton’s F=ma and inverse square law, this means “solving” a very complicated set of nonlinear differential equations.

Explicit solutions are very hard to come by but one success story is relative equilibria. These are solutions that rigidly rotate about their center of mass. “Imagine all the bodies on a record player each traveling on concentric circles around a central point at the same speed,” explains Roberts. “The shape and size of the configuration of bodies is unchanged over time so the configuration looks fixed from the perspective of the record, hence the name ‘relative equilibrium.’ ”

Saari’s conjecture states that if one fixes the total size of the system (called the moment of inertia) then the solution must be one of these special relative equilibria. Rick Moeckel proved the conjecture for N=3 bodies using BKK Theory, but the conjecture is open for more than three bodies.

The question on finiteness of relative equilibria is an old one that asks whether, for a fixed set of masses, the number of these special rigidly rotating solutions is finite or not. “An interesting application here is that if there were to be an infinite number of relative equilibria — generally believed not to be true but no one’s been able to prove it yet for more than four bodies — this would provide an ideal setting for ‘free parking’ in space,” said Roberts.

Studying stability of relative equilibria asks whether these solutions are stable. “This means that if one perturbs the solution — imagine a comet flying fairly close by — will the solution be around or break apart? Stable solutions are the ones we see in the universe. For example, the sun, Jupiter and the Trojan asteroids form a stable relative equilibrium in the shape of an equilateral triangle,” he said. Based on his past research and on that of Moeckel, it appears that the only stable relative equilibria are those with a dominant mass, that is, a mass that is significantly larger than all the others. Roberts made some progress on this problem in his doctoral thesis, but hopes to establish it more firmly over the next three years.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Catherine A. Roberts, associate professor in the department of mathematics and computer science at the College of the Holy Cross, has been selected as one of 14 master teachers for the Intel Massachusetts Department of Education/Intel Math Initiative. She will take part in a teacher professional development program for K-8 mathematics teachers designed to ensure high quality mathematics instruction and high levels of mathematics learning in elementary schools. The master teachers were chosen out of a pool of more than 90 applicants.

“The philosophy behind the program is that our elementary teachers need to feel more confident and comfortable with mathematics. They need to understand how the math they are teaching at their grade level fits into higher mathematics,” said Roberts.

As part of the initiative, Roberts will work with teachers from the Springfield school district. She will teach one week in August followed by four days during the fall. Course content focuses on a conceptual understanding of arithmetical operations (and fractions) for the first half of the course and foundational algebra (linear functions) for the second half, with the relationship of arithmetic, geometry, and algebra highlighted throughout the course. All topics are taught using a variety of problem solving strategies that relate directly to the K-8 mathematics classroom.

Roberts is enthusiastic about supporting the goals of the Department of Education in this significant public education initiative.

“I have concerns about the high-stakes tests such as MCAS that our students are required to take,” she said. “I want to do something to help the teachers, who I think aren’t necessarily being given the support and tools that they need to be successful. I consider it something of a personal obligation to use my strengths in mathematics and my love of teaching in a way that can help.”

Roberts, who lives in Jefferson, hopes that, next year, schools in Worcester and Central Massachusetts will apply to become Intel Massachusetts Math Initiative sites.

Since coming to Holy Cross in 2001, Roberts has been leading a distinguished career in her own specialization of mathematical modeling. Roberts’ work as the editor of the journal Natural Resource Modeling led to her leadership in the development of a recreational use model for white water rafting traffic on the Colorado River for the Grand Canyon National Park.

She has been an active member of the Blackstone River Coalition, and led the College into an active role in that organization. She sits on the board of directors of the Regional Environmental Council of Central Massachusetts, and has recently been working to create the “Blackstone Collaboratory” on the Holy Cross campus as a locus of learning, research, and community partnership for Holy Cross students. She is the director of the Environmental Studies program at Holy Cross.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Crystal Quintanilla, a graduate of the Holy Cross Class of 2007, has been awarded a grant to be a North American Language and Culture Assistant in Spain.

Quintanilla, who majored in Spanish with a concentration in Latin American and Latino Studies, will work in Andalucía.

She plans to become a teacher, either of Spanish language and literature or bilingual education. She is currently enrolled in a summer workshop through the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers at Phillips Academy in Andover, which is preparing her for graduate school. The program “aims to reduce over time the critical underrepresentation on the faculties of certain minority groups, as well as to address the attendant educational consequences of these disparities.” She plans to begin a master’s degree program by the fall of 2008. She lives in Washington, D.C.

At Holy Cross, Quintanilla participated in Student Programs for Urban Development for three years.

Grants for North American Language and Culture Assistants in Spain are funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain. Approximately 1,000 grants are awarded each year. Assistants have the opportunity to learn about the Spanish language and culture and use their experience upon their return to the United States, thus helping to develop cultural understanding between the citizens of Spain and the United States. At the same time, the program provides Spanish students and teachers of English an opportunity to broaden and increase their knowledge of the English language and North American culture through interaction with native speakers.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Approximately 45 art historians, literary scholars, sculptors, and filmmakers from such countries as Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States will attend a conference to present papers and participate in conversation on the theme of intimacy in literature and the visual arts.

The conference, titled “An International Word & Image Conference: ‘Intimacy,’ ” will be held from June 28 – 30 at the University of Paris 7. The event is sponsored by the international French/English journal Interfaces, the University of Paris 7, and the College of the Holy Cross.

The representation of intimacy, the paradoxical display or publication of private concerns, behaviors and sentiments, has always been a central issue in literature and the visual arts. In both fields, specific genres or strategies have often been devised that could mediate such a representation. The conference will examine the way that issue has been tackled in all literary and visual media.

The conference will feature as its plenary speaker Michael McKeon, professor of English at Rutgers University, and author of The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private and the Division of Knowledge (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). His address is titled “Literary and Graphic Images in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England.”

The conference, held every other year since 1986, marks one of the largest gatherings of international scholars in the humanities around a single theme.

Members of the Holy Cross faculty have been part of this multi-disciplinary conference since its inception 21 years ago. Maurice A. Geracht, professor of English at Holy Cross and co-president of the International Word and Image Conference, has been involved in the conference since its founding and is also co-editor of Interfaces. The current issues are Vol. 25, “Envisioning Shakespeare” guest-edited by Helen Whall, associate professor of English; and Vol. 26, “Representing Illness in Literature and the Arts” edited by Geracht.

In addition to Geracht, two other Holy Cross faculty members will present at the conference and represent the College: Virginia Raguin, professor of visual arts, and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, associate professor of English.

Interfaces, co-edited by the University of Paris 7 and Holy Cross, is a bilingual illustrated journal focusing on the dividing line — the “interface” — between language and the image, two means of expression different and yet inseparable. This interface was displaced when the cinema made the image move, then speak, thus making time its medium and creating a new type of discourse. But the old interface between language and the static image still remains and its power is enhanced by modern technology.

Papers submitted for the conference will be considered for publication in Interfaces.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Sarah Guidi and Erin Murphy, graduates of the Holy Cross Class of 2007, have received grants to be North American Language and Culture Assistants in Spain.

Guidi, who double majored in Spanish and psychology, will work in Castilla La Mancha. She plans to attend graduate school and continue her education in psychology, and hopes to incorporate her love of the Spanish culture into a future career. Guidi spent her junior year abroad in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. She lives in Hopedale.

At Holy Cross, Guidi was involved with Student Programs for Urban Development, served as a tour guide, and was part of the Spanish Honor Society.

Murphy, who double majored in Spanish and political science, will work in Andalucia. Murphy would like to attend law school, and also hopes to be able to interact with the Hispanic population as part of her chosen profession. She lives in Springfield.

At Holy Cross, Murphy was a member of the Purple Key Society and Spanish Honor Society.

Grants for North American Language and Culture Assistants in Spain are funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain. Approximately 1,000 grants are awarded each year. Assistants have the opportunity to learn about the Spanish language and culture and use their experience upon their return to the United States, thus helping to develop cultural understanding between the citizens of Spain and the United States. At the same time, the program provides Spanish students and teachers of English an opportunity to broaden and increase their knowledge of the English language and North American culture through interaction with native speakers.